February 5, 2008

The Day Shitface Came Back from that Mental Place
or Holy Shit! Shitface is back!Starring Shitface

Ever since that day, back in October of 2006, that Shitface vanished, I have been unable to pen any interesting adventures. I think Shitface inspired me. I will always remember that day. I was out watering my bricks when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Shitface jogging down the street wearing nothing but a rusty hubcap. Since I really didn't need to water the bricks (I don't actually own the duplex, just rent, so maybe I should leave that to the owner) I decided to drop the hose and see what was what.

I was perplexed as to why those police officers were chasing him. After all, it was nearing Halloween, surely they could see that Shitface was just trying on his new costume. But, as another example of the authorities in this great Republic stifling outdoor creativity, Shitface was finally and unceremoniously tackled to the pavement. He was handcuffed and taken away and I hadn't seen him since.

Until today.

Dom told me that Shitface was in a state-run mental facility. Cleesh said Shitface was "Coo Coo For Cocoa Puffs." Ex Treme said "EEEEXXX TREEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEEE EEEEE EEEEEE EEEEME!" He was probably referring to the extreme nature of Shitface's incarceration. But at any rating, he is back. I saw him standing outside the convenience store at the corner. I was with Ex Treme and we had just exited the store. He had intimated to me - very loudly - that he was going to climb a nearby tree and then jump out of it while drinking his energy drink. I was going to follow him to the tree when I noticed my old friend standing near the pumps staring at me. His hair was cut shorter and neater than it usually was. And he was fully clothed... and the sweater and jeans were clean. And the white puffs coming from his mouth were not cigarette or cigar smoke (or smoke from an exploded firecracker), they were just from his breath condensing in the cold winter air. But I still recognized him.

"Shitface!" I said, smiling at him. "It's been too long! How ya been?!"

"'Shitface?'" he said. He seemed puzzled for some reason.

"What?" I said. "It's me. What's wrong?"

"Ohhhhh yeeeaaahhh," he said. A smiling realization of sorts seemed to wash over his face. Ah, he remembered me! "We used to go to Taco Bell!"

"Yes!" I said. "We would talk about many deep philosophies while ordering and eating many fine items of Mexican cuisine!"

I have to admit I was taken aback a bit by his blurted criticism of my intelligencia. But then, I thought, an opinion from such a Renaissance man as Shitface should be taken seriously.

"I apologize, maybe it was only you who was speaking about deep philosophies while we were dining in fine Mexican cuisine," I said.

Shitface began smiling again. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," I said, smiling back.

Suddenly his smile began stretching further into a super-happy smile just like he used to have. And his eyes started to bug out of his face just like they used to.

"They told me..." Shitface said. Then he paused, probably for dramatic effect. "They told me that my recovery would be damaged if I began to hang out with the likes of you again. But... screw them. What are you doing today?"

"I was going to go vote in the Primaries after drinking some extreme beverages in this tree with Ex Treme," I replied. "Want to join us?"

And just like that the old Shitface was back. His beverage of choice for the tree adventure - coffee - didn't seem very extreme to Ex Treme and I, but when he spilled it - on purpose, methinks - on the unsuspecting convenience-store-goers below, it got much more of an emotional reaction than when Ex Treme accidentally spilled his Vault on that baby. Maybe Shitface's coffee wasn't extreme in a general sense, but it was extremely hot, that's for sure.

I almost felt sorry for the people screaming in pain below, unable for a variety of reasons to look up and find the source of their suddenly bad morning, but Shitface's statement about our dependency on caffeinated beverages to wake us up in the morning had to be made.

Before going over to the polling place at the elementary school, we'd decided that our votes would be wasted going to Hilary Swank, Brock Osama, that wrestler Cane, that Mormon guy, or Huckleberry. We'd come to the conclusion that the best course of action was to write in Ex Treme. Our dissatisfaction with our current choices and our agreement that we needed an extreme change in the White House of Representatives had prompted our idea.

We created quite a scene at the voting booth. "Sir, you need to wear pants to vote!" the man with the big notebook in front of him said to Shitface. I decided to be his advocate, loudly voicing my objection to denying an American citizen his right to vote just because of a lack of slacks (whilst wondering just where in the heck did they go??). It was not as if he had removed his boxer shorts, too.

"Ex Treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme spillage!" yelled Ex Treme after he accidentally spilled his Amp drink all over his ballot. When he tried to shake it off he got droplets of the liquid energy on his fellow voters. He became quite upset when the ink began running where he had written himself in.

"I think Ex Treme has a good chance," I said as we strolled away from the school after we had all been unfairly been kicked out by the big black security guard.

Besides that it was turning out to be such a good day. That "So Happy Together" song by that that 60's band began to play in the back of my mind as a soundtrack to that day, as Shitface and I went around town on that cold but sunny day. It didn't stop while Shitface shoved his boot into Ex Treme's mouth during one of his extreme moments. "Effff teeeeeeeeeeeeeemmmmm!" he yelled, his extreme vocalization impeded by the presence of feaux leather. The song also didn't stop playing as we tossed Ex Treme off of that overpass. Don't worry. He fortunately landed on that grassy part and not into the path of the interstate-traveling cars. Plus, he even seemed to like it, him doing his extreming screaming all the way down. The song even played as we placed that flaming bag of dog poo on Dom's front porch and rang his doorbell.

Appropriately, the day ended with us going through Taco Bell's drive thru, getting our late night dinner. Shitface had even found his old car in the junk yard. We had to push it, though, since it no longer ran. We did get some odd looks from the taco staff. And we got some yelling, break-squealing, and one-fingered gestures from other drivers on Main Street as we pushed the vehicle into the road and then caught up with it.

"Shitface," I said, as we were eating our Mexican cuisine, sitting in his car which was stuck in that ground-level billboard for Viagra, "I hope that now that you're back, that we can have many more days like this."

"FoooooooozBALLLLL!" he yelled as he tossed nacho-cheese-covered refried beans into the air.

Today it seemed that everywhere I went I was accosted by the front page of the Toronto Sun. In gazillion-point Second Coming typeface, it cried "INSIDE EVIL ORGAN TRADE", accompanied by a picture of a man holding up his shirt to display an appropriately evil scar on his left side.

In checking now on the interweb, I see that in much smaller type it says "Manhunt for 'Dr. Horror' exposes global network of human suffering Page 3". I don't doubt that a harrowing tale of, well, human suffering, lies behind the headline. But that's not why it captured my attention.

I spent the afternoon commute deep in thought about this rather ambiguous headline, based on the way I initially parsed it. My first reaction was surprise that medical science had identified the Evil organ. Not so much that it existed, but that I'd somehow failed to hear about it before now. The sociological implications are staggering. Would removing such an organ become a new elective surgery, or even worse, a condition of employment for educators and police officers? What about politicians, or would doing so effectively neuter them? Would we see Evil organs routinely excised as part of prison programs?

Then there's the scar. It seems evident that the Evil organ is in fact the appendix. This explains much, but raises all kinds of secondary questions. Is the Evil organ a sort of bile duct, cleansing Evil from the body or possibly providing a sort of Evil enzyme as required? Do people who have their appendix removed lose their capacity for Evil? Or, worse yet, does the Evil begin to accumulate in their body unfiltered? Would a study of John Wayne Gacy, Jr. and Jeffrey Dahmer find that they had their appendixes removed at a young age? Or that they retained appendixes into adulthood (as I myself have done)? Do people suffer burst appendixes because they suppress their evil desires and ambitions so long that the Evil organ overloads? Would the perpetration of a minor Daily Evil suffice to release the pressure and keep the Evil system in balance?

Then there's the whole concept of trade. Presumably not the sort of trade like Ray Emery of the Ottawa Senators to the Los Angeles Kings for Rob Blake and a bag of pucks (though now that I type it, it has possibilities...) but rather an organized business, presumably of the black market variety. But again, of what sort? Do minor villains and failed bad guys (say, Chad Vader) look to transplant larger or better functioning Evil organs in order to improve their ability to commit Evil? Would some prison surgeries be guilty of selling Evil organs of celebrity killers as highly prized specialty items?

Now that the news of the Evil organ has broken, will we begin to receive email offers that claim to Increase your Evil organ size by up to 3 inches?, promising to be Sure to impress your girlfriend/wife? or perhaps even to Make your adversaries scream (for mercy)?

These are the things I wonder about on the subway when I have forgotten to bring a novel, and I'm tired of trying to learn Russian from my iPod.